Slooooooooooooow Burn: A Lufus Story
by Lyatt1941
Summary: A look at the underrated love story between Rufus and Lucy...more affectionally known as Lufus. Starting with the Pilot, we will move forward through all the moments that make Lufus the REAL OTP of Timeless. This is COMEDY.


**Notes:**

 **I know. I should be working on Torrent.**

 **But I just couldn't get this out of my head...especially with that wonderful Lufus moment on the rewatch tonight. I was so inspired. A special thanks to Rachael for supporting me in my Lufus dreams...she encouraged me to go ahead with this fiction and so if you hate it...blame her.**

 **Happy Reading...and I promise I'll work on Torrent...I've been busy, traveling out of town and such. I actually got quite a bit done on it before I switched gears and moved onto this which only took me about two hours to jot down...so you know, a lot of care and attention went into this one.**

 **I DO have plans to go through all the episodes with this...but just be warned, this is not going to be polished by ANY means. It's just for sillies.**

 **Alright, I'm going to bed now.**

Rufus always had a thing for dark haired, dark eyed beauties. He had been nursing a crush on fellow engineer Jiya for a while now, but he didn't know love until Lucy Preston entered his LifeBoat.

"Hi, I'm Lucy."

That's all she needed to say before Cupid's arrow pierced his heart. Sure, Jiya had been the object of his affections for a long time, but she was Star Trek and he was Star Wars….and well, it would never work out. Lucy Preston, on the other hand…she would be the Leia Organa to his Lando Calrission because screw Han Solo….he was a scruffy looking nerf-herder….much like that drunk soldier guy who was currently taking up the mantel of third wheel.

Wayland? Warren? Wyatt?

He couldn't remember, he didn't even care. All that mattered was Lucy.

He felt his palms sweat as he manned the controls. He needed to get this right….he couldn't expect to impress Lucy if they all imploded into tiny bits ripping through the fabric of space and time. His nerves be damned. She was a fine piece of woman, but that wouldn't matter if they all disintegrated in the next five minutes because of his serious lack of focus. He tried to ignore the conversation going on behind him, though her voice was like chocolate silk to his ears. Wayland didn't seem too interested in her...which was good, but damn if he wasn't Delta Force and Rufus wasn't an engineering super nerd, he would be throwing that brother down. How many times did Lucy have to tell him not to call her "ma'am" before he would take the hint? Oh and Han Solo wannabe was halfway to drunk…surprise, surprise. He may not be able to kick Delta Force ass, but time travel certainly could.

That's right, ass wipe - feel my turbulence.

Touching down in 1937, Rufus smirked with satisfaction. Lucy had seemed to handle the trip well despite telling Winston that she suffered from claustrophobia. He, on the other hand, was doubled over spitting up the remnants of Jack Daniels or Captain Morgan or whatever the hell he had sucked down before jumping into Rufus' time machine.

Delta Force: 0 Time Travel: 1

Petite thing that she was, she held her own pretty good. She didn't complain about the turbulence, the nausea, the less than state of the art controls on his personal Millennium Falcon, no….she wouldn't…because she was Lucy Preston. She was an angel. Standing next to her, watching the Hindenburg float gracefully through the air, seeing the look of childlike wonder on her beautiful face? Heaven. Rufus was in absolute heaven…that is, until they had to walk 5 damn miles until a bus picked them up.

Rufus had high hopes of chatting up his new lady love on the trip into town, but dammit it was 1937 and no, that just wasn't happening. Screw these racist historic assholes. Wayne snagged the seat beside Lucy, while Rufus was forced to watch from afar. He thought he was so cool in his fedora.

Yeah, you didn't look so cool when you were puking your guts out, Rambo.

He could tell from the bobbing of their heads and the gesticulating of his arms that they were talking. He wondered if Warren still insisted on calling her ma'am against her will. Just as he was thinking that he might be losing his shot, Lucy turned back to look at him with a sympathetic smile.

Dream on, Delta Force. She's MY long, tall, glass of milk.

Once back out on the street, he tried to make up for lost time, immediately falling into conversation with her. She knew her history, she knew her science…and the two of them schooled old solider boy on what it was that brought the Hindenburg down. Rufus had half a mind to tell him to go look for Garcia Flynn on his own, but of course, Winston dragged them into a bar…apparently, he needed to replace the stuff he had lost back in that field. Once again, however, racism kept him from enjoying a moment with his dark haired beauty. "Why don't you wait outside and not make eye contact with anyone" she said in a half whisper. Rufus didn't want to leave her alone, since Winthrop was already ordering a drink at the bar. He may be Delta Force, but damn, that boy only worried about himself.

Waiting for them outside felt like an eternity. Alcohol could lower her inhibitions and she might find those bloodshot blue eyes attractive. He needn't have worried, however. Waylan came out of the bar gushing over some girl named "Kate", how that man could even think about looking at another woman when Lucy was in the room was beyond him. She didn't seem too bothered by it though…but he had to give her props for the shade she threw his way.

"She only has about 90 minutes left to live." Lucy threw out casually.

William stopped dead in his tracks looking like she had just melted down his favorite action figure. "You just stood there chatting her up when she's about to die?"

"Today's her day!" she said in a sing song voice.

BURN. – which considering that this Kate was supposedly going to die in the fiery crash of the Hindenburg seemed pretty damn appropriate.

Rushing onto Lakehurst Naval Station just as the Hindenburg was about to land, was surreal. The film crew, the air ship, the entire scene looked like something out of an old newsreel….except that it was live, in color…and in your face. Delta Force Willis strolled up to Admiral Rosendahl like he was the shit and barked out some nonsense that Garcia Flynn was a danger to his base. When the Admiral rightly asked "What sort of danger?" Walter, his mind probably affected by all the alcohol, froze. Enter the brilliant historian. She showed that scruffy scoundrel what a real professional looked like. She sputtered off some aliases, talked about the Spanish flu, but that's about all Rufus caught…because he was entranced….ENTRANCED by her quick thinking and amazingly cool head under pressure. And hoo boy if that Admiral didn't hop to attention. Warren was looking mighty pleased with her too, but Rufus knew…that self-assured sonofabitch had screwed up and now he was trying to kiss up to the woman he had been dissing since before they left Mason Industries.

I've got your number – jackass.

Lucy suggested they split up…so they did…..but no sooner had they made their way into the throng of people helping to bring down the airship, that Rufus looked over and saw old Walter hovering around that Kate chick again.

What the actual hell, dude. Is she Garcia Flynn? Because she doesn't look like a Croatian tree to me!

Rufus looked around for Lucy, to make sure she was seeing this shit, when he noticed she was gone. Well, that explained why he brown-nosing kiss ass had switched gears again and was all up in another woman's business.

7:25 PM came and went and the Hindenburg landed without any problem.

Shit.

He might not have been the historian, but he was pretty sure that was going to put a wrinkle in his bae's brow. But where was she? Wayne finally realized that she was missing and decided to go look for her. He was a faster runner…because he was Delta Force…and he probably didn't eat tacos every Tuesday, so he got to Lucy first. Rufus however, was there to see her lecture him about bringing his modern gun into the past.

Girl does not play with your shit, Wilbur!

Getting arrested because of the trigger-happy soldier was not in the plan. Yet, there they were in separate jail cells. The humiliation of being in one while the two white folks were in the other just added to the pain of being separated from Lucy once again. If he had done his P90X like he had always intended, Rufus knew that nothing could have prevented him from tearing through those bars to rip Winslow a new one when he caught him looking at Lucy's chest. She looked annoyed as hell…but then seemed to relax a bit when it appeared to be all part of some elaborate plan cooked up in the alcohol laden mind of the scruffy looking nerf herder.

"Make a distraction."

What the hell do I look like to you? I am not your puppet, Wendall.

But then, Rufus saw the hopeful look on Lucy's face and he couldn't disappoint her. She inspired him, she made him feel like he could do anything. So he opened his mouth and poured out a speech that surprised even him. The "Michael" is what he would remember it by….it was a proud moment and he looked with satisfaction at the expression of surprise and delight on Lucy's face as he whispered the last line "History, is not on your side."

Goosebumps, he could tell she had them too.

If he had known that Wilbur's plan was to get Lucy to take off her bra, he wouldn't have participated. What a dick move. Granted, he also got to enjoy the view…but the fact that he was one whole cell over and Wesley got to rip her bra with his teeth? It was like watching some grade school bully enjoy a pudding cup he bought with the lunch money he kicked your ass for.

Thankfully, though, in this case, an ass kicking was not in the cards. Weatherby had picked the lock with Lucy's underwire and busted them all out of that backwoods New Jersey jail cell. They managed to make it back to the base for the Hindenburg launched and climbed aboard the airship. Old boy met up with the blonde that couldn't hold a candle to Lucy claiming that she had seen Garcia Flynn messing around in the kitchen.

Maybe, Rufus hoped, he was just making himself a sandwich. A little midnight snack? He figured even terrorists got the munchies every once in a while. He had never known a terrorist before, so he couldn't be sure, but he imagined they still had cravings like the rest of us...especially after a long day of breaking the law, stealing a time machine, traveling through time, killing a few people...damn, now Rufus wanted a sandwich. He hoped they had pickles. A sandwich without pickles was a fracking tragedy.

But no, there would be no sandwich for Rufus because there was a damn bomb on the Hindenburg. Well, if he was going to die, at least he would be with Lucy. Soldier boy didn't seem too worried….he apparently had training for this sort of thing, so he sent Lucy and Rufus off to land the airship. Putting a knife to a Nazi's throat in front of his lady love was the biggest rush ever. This was something that was theirs and no one else's. They would always share this moment….the moment they ceased being Lucy and Rufus…historian and pilot…and instead became Natasha and Boris members of the Anarchist Black Cross. They would've brought the ship down beautifully…scaring the shit out of a few Nazis…and maybe sharing a kiss or two under the hazy New Jersey sky.

But no.

Obviously, Jack Daniels and the blonde girl named Kate were "debriefing" instead of diffusing because BOOM. Down went the Hindenburg…and all of his hopes and dreams in a mass of flame and twisted metal.

You had one job, Wilson!

Then it was chaos. Lucy had run off to God knows where. Winston was still hovering over the blonde…leading her off to the airfield…probably to get laid…he really didn't have the time or inclination to worry about that drunk ass soldier anymore…not with kids standing in the midst of a literal inferno. If Delta Force wouldn't step up to the plate, MIT would.

Rufus spent the next few minutes dragging off as many survivors as he could. If Lucy could see him, she would be proud. That was the only thing keeping him going. And then, suddenly he saw with horror, his lust muffin, his bae, being used as a human shield by that terrorist, Garcia Flynn. Good thing Walter was a crack shot…except, poor Kate took the bullet that was meant for him.

At first, Rufus felt kind of bad for the soldier, because obviously, his hookup plans were blown. But then he felt a surge of jealousy as he saw Lucy, his love, his chocolate haired angel, comforting that drunk ass pretty boy.

Well hell.

He didn't even talk to either of them as they made their way back to the LifeBoat. When they landed in the present, Jiya waved to him. He looked over at Lucy, who was making her way to the locker rooms, completely oblivious to his pain and longing.

They say jealousy can grow affection...so if that was the way to win her heart, so be it.


End file.
